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For a moment something flared in his eyes and she wondered if she had pushed him too far, but then he smiled grimly, his eyes openly sardonic.
‘Nice try,’ he told her. ‘But if David is an example of your taste, you wouldn’t know where to begin.’
As he manoeuvred his car into her parents’ drive, Storm saw her father in the front garden, tidying up the flower beds. He straightened up when he heard the car.
‘Hello, you’re early, Storm,’ he greeted her. ‘I was just about to ring up and see if you wanted a lift home.’
’I’m early,’ Storm teased affectionately, resolutely ignoring Jago. ‘What about you? Working part-time now, are we?’
‘I’ll thank you to show a little more respect for your aged parent,’ Mr Templeton grumbled, smiling at Jago. ’No lectures this afternoon—one of the few perks of stuffing the heads of the young with information. Apart from that it’s the labours of Hercules all over again.’
‘Come off it,’ Storm scoffed. ‘You love every minute of it. All those dishy young girls!’
‘Not a patch on your mother.’ He turned to Jago, his hand outstretched. ‘As Storm seems to have forgotten her manners, I’d better introduce myself. I’m Richard Templeton, and you must be Jago Marsh.’ His eyes twinkled a little as they shook hands and he turned to smile at Storm. ‘Looks perfectly normal to me.’
Storm knew her father was deliberately teasing her, but she still blushed infuriatingly. Her father was thanking Jago for bringing her home and he replied easily that it ha
dn’t brought him out of his way.
‘Jago has taken over Mr Simons’ house, Dad,’ Storm explained, wishing for some reason that it had not been necessary to introduce him to her father. The damage was done now, however.
Mr Templeton looked interested and said to Jago, ‘So we’re neighbours, then? We must get together some time.’
Storm knew from her father’s tone that the invitation was genuinely meant and hid her surprise. Mr Templeton did not suffer fools gladly, and Storm had often been a little hurt at her father’s casual dismissal of David, and she wondered a little resentfully how Jago had managed to win her father’s respect on the strength of less than two minutes’ conversation. Her father wouldn’t be so ready to accept if he knew how Jago had treated her, she thought angrily, two spots of colour burning in her cheeks as she fought against the intrusive memory of how she had reacted to him. She had fallen into his hands like an overripe plum, she lashed herself, her colour spreading as she remembered her fevered reaction, and she marched past Jago, ignoring him as she turned to ask her father if he was coming.
Richard Templeton raised his eyebrows a little and Storm bit her lip, knowing that she was being silently reprimanded.
‘You go on ahead,’ he told her, and as she hurried away she heard Jago say, ‘I’d better be on my way.’
‘Pleasant chap,’ her father commented later when they were having dinner. ‘Still…’ he glanced rather thoughtfully at his daughter, ‘I don’t think I’d recommend getting on the wrong side of him. My instincts tell me that he could be a tough nut to crack, eh, Storm?’
‘Perhaps,’ she agreed noncommittally, her eyes faintly hazy with a pain she wasn’t ready to admit to, and she was thankful when the subject was dropped. Only now, away from Jago’s disturbing presence, could she start to analyse her reactions to him, and yet for some reason she found herself reluctant to do so.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE telephone rang while Storm and her parents were watching television.
‘I’ll get it,’ Mr Templeton told Storm, disappearing into the hall. A few moments later he reappeared.
‘It’s for you,’ he told Storm. ‘David.’
David! Her pulses leapt—but not with excitement, she acknowledged unhappily. What she was experiencing was guilt. For the first time it occurred to her to question David’s feelings for her and wonder why he had never tried to put their relationship on a more intimate basis. The question had never bothered her before. David respected her, but now she wondered if it was respect or merely lack of desire that kept their romance so tepid.
His voice sounded a little strained, and Storm waited for him to tell her why he had elected to stay on in Oxford.
‘Is something wrong, David?’ she asked him when several minutes had gone by without an explanation. It wasn’t like David to phone merely for a chat.
‘You could say that,’ he said abruptly. ‘Storm, I’m leaving the station. I have no choice. Marsh has made it pretty plain that he means to take over, so I’m getting out while I can.’
‘But, David, you can’t do that! The station is you!’ Storm protested, knowing even as she spoke that she was lying. The station was now indisputably Jago’s.
‘I’ve had an offer for my shares—not that I hold that many, and I’ve decided to take it up. I’m using the money to go into business with a friend of mine in Oxford. He owns a bookshop and I’m going in as his partner. Nothing as grand as being Controller of Radio Wyechester, but I doubt if Jago would have allowed me to retain that title much longer.’
There was self-pity in the words, but Storm barely took it in. She couldn’t get over the fact that David had made these decisions without a word to her, and she felt as though a protective layer of skin had been ripped away from her, forcing her to see things she had previously ignored.
‘If it’s what you want, David,’ she sighed. ‘But what about us?’
‘Us?’ Was it her imagination or was the word guarded? ‘It doesn’t make any difference to us, Storm—unless you were more interested in my position than me.’
